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The New Northwest Stouts: Give Yourself To The Dark Side

For the past seven – eight years, now, I’ve been opining that, with the sole exception of Deschutes “The Abyss”, nobody in the Northwest was producing a Stout with the body, intensity, and that indefinable aura of “fineness” as a Parabola, Dark Lord, Bourbon County, KBS, or any of Great Divide’s 435 different Yetis. I firmly believe that a lot of brewers think they did, judging from the tasting notes I would read at their taprooms – “HUGE, dark, dense, chewy, etc., etc., etc” – but one sip of those revealed an ale that just didn’t have the body, texture, or sheer, black depth of any of those mentioned.

In Washington, especially, there were really only two that were even remotely in that same stratosphere: Pike’s immortal 5X Stout and Walking Man’s prodigious “Jaywalker”. And that was it.

In fairness to all the NW brewers who tried and missed, Stouts of that tier are ridiculously hard and expensive to make and it shows up in the sticker price. $15 for a 22 oz. bomber is not unheard of; $12 is about standard. And, of course, if you don’t bottle or can, you have to gamble that this sludgy elixir will sell through in your taproom. Dicey, at best, particularly here in the corner of the country that’s wildly, almost universally hell-bent on IPAs and Amber/Reds.

But in the past six months – except for two ales I’ll get to in a moment – I’ve begun to see some far more earnest, thoughtful versions of our big American Stout from breweries here in Washington and from one that’s almost in WA, save for a bridge and an attitude.

Photo by Jeremy B/Untapped

I’ve already showered Reuben’s Brews with enough praise to make both owner/brewmaster Adam Robbings and me blush, so I’ll be brief here: the Reuben’s Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout, as served at the first anniversary of their debut, was one of the five or ten best Stouts I have ever tasted from anywhere. Dark, impossibly silky, complex as quantum computing, it was simply – even without any beer-geeky analysis and dissection – one of the most delicious ales I’ve ever poured down my neck. My SigOther, Judye, and our daughter, Shannon, were in attendance and both were floored by the stuff. Those couple hundred folks who showed up for the Reuben’s First Anniversary will know exactly what I mean. Those who weren’t should lobby – hard!– for Adam and Mike Pfeiffer to do it again. 99 Points

There is at least one school of thought that holds that there is, aesthetically, no difference between American Stout and Porter, and I subscribe to this. We’ve pretty much erased the original British dividing line between these two styles and, indeed, some of the Porters I’ve tasted in this region could easily be passed off as Stouts and no one the wiser. One of these is the remarkable “Bourbon Barrel Possum Claws” from Black Raven Brewing in Redmond. I sent them a suggestion back before they opened – in response to a note on their site asking for ideas – for a Pecan Porter, a style I had found only twice before and which I thought had not been anywhere near fully explored. The result – the shocking, celebratory result – was “Possum Claws”, technically a Porter (that’s what Beaux Bowman calls it, anyway) but bearing a strong and very flattering similarity to one of the country’s truly great Stouts, Goose Island “Bourbon County”. The key to a pecan anything is extracting the nut flavor, which is best done by slow, gradual heating, stopping short of a full boil. As a chef, I learned the hard way how to impart pecan flavor in sauces, whipped cream, and flans and while it’s not hard, it’s tricky to do and requires the patience of a saint. Beaux and company pulled it off better than any other brewery I’ve ever found and I would literally crawl over to 95th Street to get an ounce of the stuff. In sheer textural terms, it more than measures up to the Parabolas and Dark Lords and in flavor terms, it has a sweet, creamy breadth and depth that’s absolutely irresistible. 98 Points

The biggest surprise of 2013, for me, has been the Northwest Brewing Bourbon Barrel-Aged Oatmeal Stout. Northwest, to put it bluntly, has had a hard road in its roughly one decade of business. Originally, it was called Laughing Buddha Brewing but was sent a cease & desist from a company in Australia(!), which claimed to own the name. So, Trade Route Brewing was born. Then, about two years ago, they suddenly became Northwest Brewing and I…kinda lost interest, frankly. It was too confusing and the beers inevitably suffered a bit from the turmoil. But then this stuff walks into my offices, one of the – no kiddin’ -most distinctive Stouts I have evertasted. Most Stouts, as a rule and because of their ingredients, lead with coffee, chocolate, and molasses, even the great ones. Northwest’s Bourbon Barrel leads with coconut and caramel! Unmistakable, aggressive, and even a little jarring. It took a few sips for me to work up a frame of reference but then…I LOVED it. The operative word is “Wow!” The hallmark creaminess of an Oatmeal ale is there in spades and those reference flavors make their presence known in hints of cocoa, molasses cookies, and cafe au lait but they lay back and let the almost German Chocolate cake flavors run the show. It’s one of the most purely delicious ales I’ve tasted in years and I’m crossing every finger I have that this ’12/’13 version is not the last we see of it. 96 Points

I just mentioned Valholl Brewing’s stunning “Stouty Stouterson” in my last post, so I won’t belabor it here, but you just gotta taste the stuff. GOTTA. The ale it reminds me most of is the world-class Firestone Walker “Parabola”, which has floored me every time I tasted it. I had it recently at another brewery, as a guest tap, and while I give that brewery BIG props for guts, the comparison with their own Stout just pointed up how clearly superior Stouty is. Like Parabola, it leads with a chocolate/coffee/licorice blast on the front of palate and then fans out to pour on the graham crackers, light molasses, horehound, and figs that form the core. Grace notes are everywhere and every one, especially the subtle hint of cigar box, is perfectly in proportion and distinct. This is a near-flawless dark and one you, again, gotta try! 97 Points

The other towering achievement I’ve found in Stoutage comes from a great little town that just missed being a part of the Evergreen State by the width of one river. Astoria, Oregon, sits just across the Astoria-Megler Bridge from us and has become our favorite weekend getaway – and we are far from alone in that. If you’ve never visited Astoria and you have any appreciation for river culture, beer, and history – not to mention the best fish ‘n’ chips you will ever taste – you owe it to yourself to visit John Jacob Astor’s planned community and Fort George Brewery. I’ve fawned over them several times, so I’ll skip the general love that Chris Nims and his crew have certainly earned the old-fashioned way and get right to this: Their Cavatica Bourbon Barrel Stout…slayed me. Slayed. I was momentarily speechless after the first sip of this beastly creation and paid TWENTY BUCKS – happily! – for my own four-pack of tallboy cans to take home, where they were hoarded and consumed by myself and (grudgingly) Judye. This is one of the Bourbonest (?) Bourbon-barreled ales I’ve ever tasted. I believe the casks were from Four Roses but I may be wrong. Wherever they came from, it was some assertive, uber-smooth, muscular Bourbon and it comes screaming out of the glass like an ES-3A Shadow blasts off a rolling flight deck. Gobs of black coffee, molasses candy, bittersweet chocolate, licorice, roasted figs, currants, and Bing cherries paint your tongue, and the texture is like having your tongue gently swabbed with velvet. Staggering but…GONE! Sadly, this particular version of the Bourbon Cavatica was a one-off. Happily, Chris is makin’ more barrel-aged darks and they’ll start showing up, I believe, this fall. If you get anywhere near Astoria, drop in, taste their whole amazing range of beers and go two blocks over to Bowpickers Fish ‘n’ Chips and prepare to taste something that, all by itself, will drag you back to Astoria regularly. 98 Points

(NOTE: I had originally thought that my saying above that the lines about what constitutes a Stout would explain why B-Bomb is on this list. In hindsight – as pointed out by the reader below – that was a stupid decision. To be clear, Fremont Bourbon Barrel “Abominable” is NOT a Stout. But I do think it deserved inclusion in this post, because of its stature and because of how its built.)

Last, and most conflicted for me, is Fremont Brewing’s near-immortal Bourbon-Barrel “Abominable”, a winter seasonal that stands as one of the two or three most distinctive Darks ever produced in the Northwest. I’m not one of those legions of Washingtonians who fawn over every single thing Fremont puts in a keg. I think some of the ales, in fact, are very average. But they do have a knack for turning on the jets when motivated and this stuff, locally called “B-Bomb”, is an Achievement. While not technically a Stout (I was aware that it’s not really a Stout but went by the preface of stylistic lines being more and more blurred as time passes and I think the actual difference is minimal but, yes, it’s not Stout…as an astute reader busted me on) Dense, deep as the Marianas Trench, fine-grained, rich as Bill Gates, and texturally almost in a league with the Yetis and Dark Lords and Abysses and Cavaticas and Reubenses. Along with their regular Abominable, Cowiche Canyon Organic Fresh Hop IPA, The Brother Double IPA, and a couple of variations of their Dark Star Imperial Stout, they carry a roster of ales that more than outweigh their over-casual beers. B-Bomb is simply inarguable, classic, flat-damned great. I don’t, unlike a lot of people, think that Fremont has achieved actual greatness yet, but I think it’s coming and, in five to seven years, if they stay hungry and keep trying to make everything better, they’ll certainly be in a league with Deschutes and Hopworks and Ninkasi and Hair of The Dog in the top tier of Northwest brewing. 98 Points

Dark ales of all types are booming, now, in the Pacific Northwest. One of the best I’ve tested from anybody was one of the most confusing: Terminal Gravity Brewing, in tiny Enterprise, Oregon, made a trial Cascadian Dark Ale that I tried in their tasting room about three years ago. It definitely had the requisite hops presence but was absolutely far more in the Porter-Stout continuum in every other aspect. If it were called a Porter, it would instantly vault into my top three all-time Northwest Porters. As a Stout, it would have stood toe-to-toe with most everything mentioned here. But…it was a CDA!! The Dark Side is a little confusing, yet, here in the dazzlin’ Soggy Corner…but it’s also wickedly delicious…

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.